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Tuesday: roomba!
Mar. 2nd, 2021 10:20 amIt is insanely cold out there!
I finally ran the roomba downstairs. I now consciously understand why I quit doing this. It was once super easy to wait until everyone was out of the house, then do surfaces, put up chairs, run roomba, drink tea, watch Bloomberg, return chairs to floor, reset all the furniture, then move on to lunch, walks, etc. Now, however, the interruptions render this tricky. T. is in his room throughout — he is not part of the problem. But A.’s breakfast goes until 8:50, then she returns for her first stretch break a little after 9. Around 9:30, the breakfast dishes are cleared, and I could start the routine — and I did — but it’s not done by her next stretch break, nor is it done by when R. comes down to have coffee at 10:30. I’ll be lucky if it’s wrapped up in time for 11 a.m. independent work block which A. prefers to do in the kitchen vs. her room, or 11:30 when it is lunch time, or a little after that, when T. shows up for his lunch, or noon, when I have my phone call with J. The only reason I could do it at all, is because I moved my morning walk with M. to the afternoon, in hopes it would be warmer. Because it is still below 20 degrees F out there.
I eventually decided that if R. was going to be down there drinking coffee anyway, he could babysit the roomba. So I have decamped to a different TV for Bloomberg and tea. It really is much better to roomba vs. running around with a vacuum cleaner. It is more persistent, and gets under more furniture. Also, I put all the dining chairs and kitchen stools up, which I rarely bother with for vacuuming manually.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-religious-differences-with-family-weigh-heavily/2021/03/01/923c5a34-7243-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
Probably behind a paywall. That’s a Carolyn Hax column; the top question is about what to do when your family of origin holds religious beliefs that over time, one comes to believe are morally on a level with neo-Nazism.
“I am increasingly wondering whether I can, in good conscience, continue to have a loving relationship with these people. To me, the religion's teachings are so wrong, so harmful, that acting friendly around them as long as religion doesn't come up would be like having a friend who's a member of a neo-Nazi organization and just turning a blind eye to it.”
It struck a chord. Hax was sympathetic, and did not commit to any single response, leaving it open to the usual (look, you NEVER have to have a relationship with anyone) and a more specific set of options (is it an action-free or action-full belief; if you maintain the relationship(s), might you be able to influence these people in a better direction; what, to you, is the relative importance of family relationships vs. morality, etc.).
I have struggled with this set of choices, but in the end, my situation was substantially different from what the person asking the question seems to be experiencing. I did not have loving relationships with my family of origin that remain within the organization, and it became quite clear over the course of a few years, that it would be impossible to have any relationship with them at all. The question, in the idiom, became moot.
I never know whether I should envy people who have to make these sorts of hard choices, or if I should thank, once again, the brutal chances of my life that removed those choices from my sphere of control.
ETA:
I should also note, a FOAF commenting on an FB post by the shared friend was noting that evangelical xtianity is not socially acceptable in the UK the way it is in the US — this came up in the context of a discussion of some reprehensible lawsuit that was being funded by reprehensible people in the US, but the case was in the UK. I don’t now recall the details of the lawsuit; I snagged on evangelical xtianity not being socially acceptable and thinking about what process might get us from here to there, and whether it is worth the trouble. I mean, it is hardly like UK politics are all that fantastic.
I finally ran the roomba downstairs. I now consciously understand why I quit doing this. It was once super easy to wait until everyone was out of the house, then do surfaces, put up chairs, run roomba, drink tea, watch Bloomberg, return chairs to floor, reset all the furniture, then move on to lunch, walks, etc. Now, however, the interruptions render this tricky. T. is in his room throughout — he is not part of the problem. But A.’s breakfast goes until 8:50, then she returns for her first stretch break a little after 9. Around 9:30, the breakfast dishes are cleared, and I could start the routine — and I did — but it’s not done by her next stretch break, nor is it done by when R. comes down to have coffee at 10:30. I’ll be lucky if it’s wrapped up in time for 11 a.m. independent work block which A. prefers to do in the kitchen vs. her room, or 11:30 when it is lunch time, or a little after that, when T. shows up for his lunch, or noon, when I have my phone call with J. The only reason I could do it at all, is because I moved my morning walk with M. to the afternoon, in hopes it would be warmer. Because it is still below 20 degrees F out there.
I eventually decided that if R. was going to be down there drinking coffee anyway, he could babysit the roomba. So I have decamped to a different TV for Bloomberg and tea. It really is much better to roomba vs. running around with a vacuum cleaner. It is more persistent, and gets under more furniture. Also, I put all the dining chairs and kitchen stools up, which I rarely bother with for vacuuming manually.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-religious-differences-with-family-weigh-heavily/2021/03/01/923c5a34-7243-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
Probably behind a paywall. That’s a Carolyn Hax column; the top question is about what to do when your family of origin holds religious beliefs that over time, one comes to believe are morally on a level with neo-Nazism.
“I am increasingly wondering whether I can, in good conscience, continue to have a loving relationship with these people. To me, the religion's teachings are so wrong, so harmful, that acting friendly around them as long as religion doesn't come up would be like having a friend who's a member of a neo-Nazi organization and just turning a blind eye to it.”
It struck a chord. Hax was sympathetic, and did not commit to any single response, leaving it open to the usual (look, you NEVER have to have a relationship with anyone) and a more specific set of options (is it an action-free or action-full belief; if you maintain the relationship(s), might you be able to influence these people in a better direction; what, to you, is the relative importance of family relationships vs. morality, etc.).
I have struggled with this set of choices, but in the end, my situation was substantially different from what the person asking the question seems to be experiencing. I did not have loving relationships with my family of origin that remain within the organization, and it became quite clear over the course of a few years, that it would be impossible to have any relationship with them at all. The question, in the idiom, became moot.
I never know whether I should envy people who have to make these sorts of hard choices, or if I should thank, once again, the brutal chances of my life that removed those choices from my sphere of control.
ETA:
I should also note, a FOAF commenting on an FB post by the shared friend was noting that evangelical xtianity is not socially acceptable in the UK the way it is in the US — this came up in the context of a discussion of some reprehensible lawsuit that was being funded by reprehensible people in the US, but the case was in the UK. I don’t now recall the details of the lawsuit; I snagged on evangelical xtianity not being socially acceptable and thinking about what process might get us from here to there, and whether it is worth the trouble. I mean, it is hardly like UK politics are all that fantastic.